Man, there was a lot of red meat in Trinity #38, and I don’t just mean the plot. From soup to nuts(y), it was a smorgasbord of superheroics the likes of which I haven’t seen since the Great Pastry Wars of the early issues.

I thought this issue was particularly strong all around. There’s still a bit of setup to take care of, but it all serves the needs of the larger story. Plot threads are tying together, Act Three’s engines are revving, and if we can see where the story’s headed, at least the journey looks fun.

In Trinity Act Two (which began ‘way back on October 1!), series mastermind Kurt Busiek removed his three stars from their customary place at the center of DC’s superhero community. As a result, the past four months have told the weekly story of a world without Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Last fall, I joked that I’d already read this miniseries when it was called 52. However, in 52 the superheroes knew who was missing. Here, the Trinitarians aren’t just offstage, they’ve been erased from Earth’s history, and the world is desperately trying to find someone to replace them. Accordingly, Trinity’s altered timeline, plus the Trinitarians’ new roles as a younger world’s gods, has taken the miniseries down a more metaphysical road.

[Just to be clear, I consider Act Two to be issues #18-35; so this week’s issue #36 kicked off Act Three.]

While there’s no clean break between Acts Two and Three like there was between Acts One and Two, there’s definitely a shift in the series’ focus. The two stories in this issue catch up with characters who got moved to Act Two’s background; and they lay the groundwork for a couple of Act Three’s subplots.

If this is the end of Act Two, it’s about what I expected. That sounds rather blase, I know; but I mean it mostly in terms of plot. It got to the place I thought it would, and it took one subplot a little farther. Together with some thought-provoking observations on Superman’s duality, the issue was fairly satisfying all around.

Overall, this issue didn’t shy away from exposition, but it still advanced the main plots. The narration cleared up some things about the rifts, justified all the Arcana-talk without making the underlying theory sound too goofy, and started stitching together the events on Earth and the Genesis Planet. And no, I don’t have any complaints about Kellel’s story the way I did about Dinanna’s.

Before we begin, just a bit of follow-up from last week. I had thought that “every woman can be a Wonder Woman” was a quote from the Golden Age. It may still be (I haven’t finished scouring my new copy of the Fleisher WW Encyclopedia), but I think what I was remembering was the full quote, “Do good to others and every man can be a Superman,” from October 1962’s Superman vol. 1 #156.

Ah, a clean conscience! I feel better — don’t you?

Now for this issue…

SPOILERS FOLLOW

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LEAD STORY

“There Must Be Hope” was written by Kurt Busiek, pencilled by Mark Bagley, inked by Art Thibert, colored by Pete Pantazis, and lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.

Welcome to week 32 of the Trinity annotations, your periodic dose of trivia and cursory analysis. The grim specter of death haunts this week’s issue, as we look at characters who have died, might die (say, next issue), and should be dead.

So, on that cheery note…

SPOILERS FOLLOW

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LEAD STORY

“Lady Of Bounty And Teacher To All” was written by Kurt Busiek, pencilled by Mark Bagley, inked by Art Thibert, colored by Pete Pantazis, and lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.

Can’t quite say I’m back in the saddle, since I’ve merely been changing saddles since Thanksgiving. This one fits pretty well, though….

On the whole I enjoyed this issue as much as any of the others. However, I’m not sure that the big reveal at the end of the first story works; and the revelations of the second story have left me with some questions too.

Yes, I know there’s a new issue of Trinity out today. Yes, I’m busy right now annotating it. However, JK Parkin and I figured this was a good way to ease ourselves into the new blog, and maybe even test-drive some features. Who knows — maybe now the comments will work correctly. I’ve also tweaked the end of this set with links to the posts from CSBG and Blog@ 1.0; so, you know, it’s not like I did a complete cut-and-paste.

Naturally, if you haven’t read all this, it’s new to you — so what are you waiting for? Grab issue #30 and play along, and come back tomorrow for issue #31!